Ben Witherington on the Bible and Culture

A one-stop shop for all things Biblical and Christian ranging from biblical interpretation, Christian reviews of books, movies, current events, Christian humor, fun pictures, musical reviews, chronicles of Ben's travels, adventures, and lectures around the world and samples of Ben's work in progress ranging from scholarly works to poetry to novels.

URL: http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/

Updated: 6 min 17 sec ago

What Will You Do?

0 sec ago

'Get Low' Rates High

Thu, 09/02/2010 - 19:40

span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/low.jpg"img alt="low.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/09/low-thumb-400x595-17663.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="400" height="595" //a/span divbr /I have, for as long as I can remember, been an enormous fan of Robert Duvall. Even in his first cameo role as Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird, he was something special.nbsp; I have loved his various cowboy and cop roles, especially loved him in The Apostle, and couldn't get enough of his performance in the made for TV mini-seriesnbsp; Lonesome Dove.nbsp; Honestly, I think he is the best actor America has produced of my generation or a little older.nbsp;nbsp; And when you throw into the mix Sisey Spacek, Bill Murray,nbsp; Bill Cobb, Gerald McRaney and other top drawer actors,nbsp; you have yourself one heck of an all star cast.nbsp; br /br /As if all that were not enough,nbsp; you also have an interesting script about a hermit from Caleb County who wants to have a funeral party while he is still alive, and he wants to speak at it!nbsp; Though the trailers for this movie might make it appear to be largely a comedy, it is certainly not that, in any superficial sense.nbsp; It is a serious movie about life and death and forgiveness, and it has some very memorable lines like 'gossip is the Devil's radio',nbsp; or 'I don't know why I need to ask Jesus' forgiveness, I never did anything to him', ornbsp; 'though people like to think that good and evil are world's apart, in fact good and evil are all intertwined'.nbsp; A good man can do evil, and even an evil man can occasionally do good.nbsp; Life is complicated. br /br /This movie is set in far western Tennessee, in a mythical Caleb County. The soundtrack is all bluegrass, a bluegrass band plays at the funeral party, and the closing credits are graced with a song by Allison Krauss about being buried.nbsp; On top of that,nbsp; 'Maddy' (played by Spacek) says she moved out west to St. Louis for a while, and when Felix Bush goes north to find his minister friend he ends up in southern Illinois. The movie has something of the feel of 'O Brother Where Art Thou'nbsp; set in the southern piny woods in the 30s but it is a much more serious movie than Clooney's movie. In fact this tall tale is based on a true story, the story of Felix 'Bush' Brezeale who famously threw himself a parting party, a living funeral, in Roane County Tennesse in 1938 drawing one of the largest crowds ever assembled to that point in American history.nbsp;nbsp; The thing about the movie Felix is that while he appears to want to find out how people will remember him, what he really wants is to set the record straight about himself, and his previous 'notorious' behavior.nbsp; He wants a coda before his denouement.br /br /Emily Dickson once said br /br /My life closed twice before its close;br / nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; It yet remains to seebr / If Immortality unveilbr / nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; A third event to me,br / So huge, so hopeless to conceive,br / nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;As these that twice befell.br / Parting is all we know of heaven,br / nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;And all we need of hell.br /br /In a sense this is what this story is about. Felix Bush wants to bring his life to a close, but not before he gathers together all those who have some sort of story to tell about Bush himself. The device used to assemble the multitude is a raffling off of Bush's 300 acres and a mule (and a home-made house) with contestants sending in $5 each.nbsp; This produces an enormous response, and a huge crowd turns up at the funeral party.nbsp; But in the end, it is Bush who tells his own story, and asks those he believes he most offended in life forgiveness.nbsp; This is a powerful story, and it also involves interesting roles for two different clergymen.nbsp; br /br /For thinking Christians this movie is a must see on so many grounds.nbsp; Shoot, just to see Bill Murray play a whimsical devil may care funeral director as the comic relief to Duvall's seriousness is worth the price of admission. My experience has been that Christians tend to merely nod politely at the prospect of mortality, and don't really engage the subject very profoundly, perhaps because they believe they have everlasting life.nbsp; However, Christianity at its best does not involve the denial of death, but rather the belief that there is a greater reality in the world than death, namely God the Living One, and also that resurrection triumphs over death, trumping it, even though death appears clearly to have a winning hand.nbsp; br /br /As you can tell, I loved this movie, as it deals in ultimate things at a profound level, and unlike most of the drivel that came out this summer calling itself a movie when really it was a 'film' in the sense of something that covers reality with dust or dirt, this one is surely worth all the time you can afford to give it and reflect on it.nbsp; It is too bad it was only given a limited release, and a low budget in terms of the advertising.nbsp; I would say the opening screen that preceded the movie had it right--- this is a Sony Classic Film.nbsp; At an hour and 40 minutes, this movie definitely goes by much to fast......rather like life.nbsp; It is also like the line in one of the first poems I ever memorized---- 'Life and death upon one tether, and running beautiful together'br /br /Lest you think I am just making up another southern tall tale about a movie that is based on a tall tale,nbsp; here is a portion of a news article by Sydneynbsp; E. Roberts published in 1984 about this very matter---br /br /"font face="Arial"The Roane County Banner had leaked the news to the outside world that 74-year old Uncle Bush Breazeale planned to have a full funeral service on June 26, 1938 while he was still alive and could enjoy it. The idea caught on. The power of the press was soon in evidence as the news spread like wildfire nation-wide. His "funeral" plan was reported nationally by the Associated Press and the UP, and photographically by Life magazine.br / br / The funeral on June 26th attracted the largest crowd ever assembled in Roane to that date; the estimates ranged from eight to twelve thousand people. Cars from at least fourteen states were backed up for two miles from the two Cave Creek Baptist Churches built side by side (one Primitive, the other Missionary) to highway #70. enterprising bJohn Cook /bcharged 25 cents per car to park in his field. He was reported to have taken in $300. Vendors from soft drink trucks did a flourishing business. Hot dogs sold well. Knoxville and Chattanooga florists shops sent floral offerings. By 2:00pm the crowd was in place. The press was represented by reporters and cameramen from the Knoxville News Sentinel and Journal, Chattanooga Times, News and Free Press. Young b Don/b b Whitehead /b who was to become a war correspondent, and two time Pulitzer winner was there.br / br / The funeral cortege was late due to the traffic jam along the road. At last the Hawkins Mortuary (of Loudon County) hearse arrived bearing the home-made walnut coffin, and Bush in the front seat. The crowd was so eager to get a glimpse of him that officers had difficulty in clearing a lane for the pallbearers to carry the coffin to its place in front of the tent on the Churchyard. Children were held high by their parents so they could see. Ten persons fainted from the heat and excitement. Uncle Bush was seated in front of his coffin dressed in a new suit, shirt, tie, etc. donated by Halls of Knoxville. For a period, he was the center of attraction for cameramen who took pictures of him and the crowd.br / br / Songs were sung by the Friendly Eight Octette of Chattanooga. b Fred Berry/b of Knoxville said "There's a Gold Mine in the Sky." the b Rev. Charles E. Jackson/b from Paris, IL, delivered the funeral sermon. The festive atmosphere soon changed to fit the solemn occasion. He said: "This service is not a bad idea. Much good should come from a service divested of the usual tears and heartaches. It gives us an opportunity to take thought of tomorrow and anticipate the great adventure called death. Mr. Breazeale and I never intended anything but that this should be a solemn service."br / br / At the conclusion of the formal program, Bush shook hands with a thousand or more friends and well-wishers. He autographed many "official programs" by marking his *X*. Bush said, "This will be my only funeral. It was the finest sermon that I ever heard, and when I die there won't be another one."br / br / Bush Breazeale was Roane's greatest celebrity. A few days later (July 4, 1938), he was dressed out in a Harriman "Papermaker" baseball uniform and threw out the first pitch in the double header between Harriman and Loudon. Shortly afterwards, Robert Ripley featured Bush in his syndicated column, and took Bush to New York City for a radio interview. When Bush got back from New York, b Mrs. Claude Johnson/b said someone asked him, "Mr. Breazeale, how did you like New York?" Bush replied, "Oh just fine. You know, they were the finest folk, and treated me wonderfully, but to be honest about it, their victuals wasn't worth a dern."br /br /And as a bonus, you will enjoy the interview of Robert Duvall which was in Christianity Today in July. Here is a link-----http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/movies/interviews/2010/lowdownrobert-july-10.html.br /br /nbsp; /fontbr /br /nbsp;br //div a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/09/get-low-rates-high.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/Z2ucw_B6KyTvijqTBjaGicPPrdE/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/Z2ucw_B6KyTvijqTBjaGicPPrdE/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/Z2ucw_B6KyTvijqTBjaGicPPrdE/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/Z2ucw_B6KyTvijqTBjaGicPPrdE/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

The SBL Kerfuffle---- Should Christian Scholars Participate?

Thu, 09/02/2010 - 12:45

span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/002_00A.JPG"img alt="002_00A.JPG" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/09/002_00A-thumb-500x333-17661.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="333" //a/spanbr /Here is an article in Christianity Today about the recent kerfuffle about whether believing scholars should participate in the guild--- the Society of Biblical Literature. This was all prompted by an article by Ron Hendel in BAR earlier this year.nbsp; You will find my view in the article itself....br /br /http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/september/4.16.htmlbr /br /The picture is of two of my close friends in the guild, Richard Hays and Richard Bauckham. We were all attending the Hebrews Conference at St. Andrews University in Scotland a while back. br /BW3br /divbr //div a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/09/the-sbl-kerfuffle-----should-christian-scholars-participate.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/nlSO-8Uj8GSh13wmQMnoP-BtA44/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/nlSO-8Uj8GSh13wmQMnoP-BtA44/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/nlSO-8Uj8GSh13wmQMnoP-BtA44/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/nlSO-8Uj8GSh13wmQMnoP-BtA44/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

'Get Low'--a Preview of a Great Film

Wed, 09/01/2010 - 20:11

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The Jesus Seminar--- 25 Years Later

Wed, 09/01/2010 - 12:26

span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/Down%20Under2010%20076-thumb-500x281-17162.jpg"img alt="Thumbnail image for Down Under2010 076.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/Down%20Under2010%20076-thumb-500x281-17162-thumb-500x281-17163.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="281" //a/spanbr /Jeff MacDonald, a good journalist has written an article for the Religious News Service which has now appeared in the Huffington Post about the impact of the Jesus Seminar 25 years later, and what they are up to now.nbsp; Here is the link to the article.....br /br /http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/31/jesus-seminar-celebrates-_n_701396.htmlbr /br /You will discover that my friend Richard Hays at Duke and I were interviewed for the article about the conservative reaction to the Jesus Seminar.nbsp; See what you think.nbsp; br /br /BW3br /br / divbr //div a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/09/the-jesus-seminar----25-years-later.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/eZmQu3O1Yn3aEMmUc2BRWgVDDsA/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/eZmQu3O1Yn3aEMmUc2BRWgVDDsA/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/eZmQu3O1Yn3aEMmUc2BRWgVDDsA/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/eZmQu3O1Yn3aEMmUc2BRWgVDDsA/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Food for Thought

Tue, 08/31/2010 - 12:38

span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/mindseye.jpg"img alt="mindseye.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/mindseye-thumb-400x489-17632.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="400" height="489" //a/span divbr /meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CBENWIT%7E1.ASB%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"!--[if gte mso 9]xml w:WordDocument w:ViewNormal/w:View w:Zoom0/w:Zoom w:PunctuationKerning/ w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/ w:SaveIfXMLInvalidfalse/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid w:IgnoreMixedContentfalse/w:IgnoreMixedContent w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderTextfalse/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText w:Compatibility w:BreakWrappedTables/ w:SnapToGridInCell/ w:WrapTextWithPunct/ w:UseAsianBreakRules/ w:DontGrowAutofit/ /w:Compatibility w:BrowserLevelMicrosoftInternetExplorer4/w:BrowserLevel /w:WordDocument /xml![endif]--!--[if gte mso 9]xml w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156" /w:LatentStyles /xml![endif]--style !-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} -- /style!--[if gte mso 10] style /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} /style ![endif]-- p class="MsoNormal"BRAIN FOOD/p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"I've got a genuine replica brain,/p p class="MsoNormal"It's a collectible rendition,/p p class="MsoNormal"I grant it's not the latest model,/p p class="MsoNormal"But it's in good condition. /p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"It still processes data pretty well/p p class="MsoNormal"Though there are some memory lapses/p p class="MsoNormal"It distinguishes between good and evil,/p p class="MsoNormal"Even between knaves and apses./p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"There's minimal start up time (with the help of good coffee)/p p class="MsoNormal"And on occasion it multi-tasks/p p class="MsoNormal"But if you want infallible or perfect/p p class="MsoNormal"You'd best not ask./p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"This brain is not for sale,/p p class="MsoNormal"Nor is it on permanent loan/p p class="MsoNormal"But what with our new technology/p p class="MsoNormal"I understand it can be cloned./p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"Ifspan style=""nbsp; /spanyou're looking for help with the Bible,/p p class="MsoNormal"Or music and span style=""nbsp;/spangood books,/p p class="MsoNormal"I've got a lot of things stuffed in the cortex/p p class="MsoNormal"That deserves a second look./p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"If you find someone to clone it,/p p class="MsoNormal"I ask you make it known,/p p class="MsoNormal"I would like a backup copy/p p class="MsoNormal"Of my very own. /p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"I've got a genuine replica brain,/p p class="MsoNormal"Though the synapses are misfiring/p p class="MsoNormal"This accounts for the forgetfulness,/p p class="MsoNormal"Just blame it on the wiring.span style=""nbsp; /span/p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"I was thinking of advertising this on eBay/p p class="MsoNormal"But I remembered I had a blog,/p p class="MsoNormal"If you would like a data dump download/p p class="MsoNormal"Then reply to this data log./p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"o:pBW3 br //o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p br //div a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/08/food-for-thought-1.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/zXXMnZTh50UE-9iz8OIwGpvaXDo/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/zXXMnZTh50UE-9iz8OIwGpvaXDo/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/zXXMnZTh50UE-9iz8OIwGpvaXDo/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/zXXMnZTh50UE-9iz8OIwGpvaXDo/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Never Give Up

Mon, 08/30/2010 - 03:08

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Beck Beckons at the Lincoln Memorial

Sun, 08/29/2010 - 16:11

span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/beck2.jpg"img alt="beck2.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/beck2-thumb-400x300-17584.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="400" height="300" //a/span divbr /On the anniversary of Martin Luther King's famous 'I have a Dream' speech, somewhere between 300,000 and 600,000 people showed up for a rally at the Lincoln Memorial featuring speeches by Glenn Beck (a Mormon) and Sarah Palin (some sort of conservative Protestant).nbsp; Here is the link to the NY times article on the matter this morning----br /bbr /http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/us/politics/29beck.html?_r=1amp;thamp;emc=th/bbr /br /Meanwhile at Dunbar High School in D.C., a much smaller rally was held, led by actual Civil Rights leaders and the main speaker was Rev. Al Sharpton. br /br /If nothing else these two parallel rallies show that we still have a very long way to go when it comes to race relationships in this country. It is understandable how many African Americans might find the rally led by Beck, which was not focused on improving our race relations and was in that regard not in accord with King's speech and vision cast on that very day so many years ago now, offensive in various ways. br /br /Glenn Beck disavowed this was a political rally and instead concentrated on saying that America needs revival, needs to get back to God, and also needs to get back to the vision of our Founding Fathers and our charter documents.nbsp; What should we think of all of this? nbsp; Several observations are in order. br /br /1)nbsp; As I have pointed out on various occasions on this blog, our Founding Fathers were a religiously mixed multitude.nbsp; There were Deists, there were Christians, and there were even others involved.nbsp; Any one who has done serious religious research into the faith of people like Benjamin Franklin or John Adams or Thomas Jefferson or other early luminaries will realize that many of the guiding lights at the founding of our nation were not 'born again Christians' in the modern sense at all.nbsp; Take for example Thomas Jefferson, the man who famously produced the Jefferson Bible, a Bible which was said to have inspired Jesus Seminar founder Robert Funk.nbsp; The Jefferson Bible deletes various miracles of Jesus and the NT 'dogmatic' passages to focus on a 'Judaeo-Christian' ethic.nbsp; Of course at the same time Jefferson was producing Gospel light (less filling, tastes great), he was also advocating principles espoused by John Locke when it came to things like freedom ornbsp; private property, principles that don't exactly jive with what the Bible says about property---- namely that 'the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof'.nbsp; br /br /2) While I quite agree with Mr. Beck that this nation needs revival badly, it is right to be leery of the sort of uncritical amalgamation of our civic religion ('God bless the U.S.A.') and our Christian faith that we hear coming out of Mr. Beck's mouth. nbsp; It was precisely this sort of amalgamation of Americanism and Christianity that Martin Luther King often took exception to, and which caused him to be accused of communism among other things.nbsp; We need a revival alright in this country, but it needs to be a genuinely Christian counter-cultural revival, not a rebirth of a slightly Christianized civic religion. br /br /3)nbsp; A counter-cultural Christian revival would indeed have to involve repentance of the serious sins of our country, not the least of which are racism, materialism, and militarism.nbsp; There is a reason why Paul told us that 'in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, no male and female, for all are one in Christ' (Gal. 3.28).nbsp; There is no spiritual Gospel that doesn't have such social implications, and despite Glenn Beck's ranting and raving about liberation theology, the truth of the matter is that God cares about justice issues, and salvation from our besetting sins inherently involves dealing with things like racism, greed, and a host of other isms.nbsp; br /br /At the end of the day,nbsp; what yesterday revealed to us is that we are still a deeply divided nation, indeed even the Christians, who were present in considerable numbers at both rallies, are deeply divided. nbsp; My hope would be that this Fall the politics of fear doesn't overwhelm the politics of faith, for our country has been making too many fear-based decisions in the last decade.nbsp; We are at a place of profound cynicism in our culture about our major institutions---- political, educational, and yes religious institutions.nbsp; Movements like the Tea Party movement reflect this profound cynicism.nbsp; br /br /A society however can not be held together, or make progress on the basis of fear based decision-making.nbsp; There has to be trust, there has to be faith,nbsp; and there has to be meaningful discourse and dialogue..... not merely ideological posturing by either the left or the right.nbsp; Dueling banjos are incapable of playing in harmony or producing a meaningful and helpful ensemble. nbsp; We need less bombast and posturing and more of the spirit which says 'come let us reason together'. nbsp; br /br /My prayer is that there will indeed be both a funeral and a revival.nbsp; We need to hold a funeral for cheap talk, dirty politics, character assassination, fragmentation and posturing from whatever point on the political spectrumnbsp; We need a revival of co-operation, can-do spirit, and bipartisanship. nbsp; We need to hold a funeral for talk shows which are high on moral outrage and ideologically driven vituperation and low on actual facts or reasoned discourse.nbsp; We need to simply stop watching such shows--- it is noise not news.nbsp; br /br /But more than anything else we need a true revival that centers on Jesus Christ who famously said 'if anyone would come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me'. nbsp; The road that Jesus is walking down doesn't lead to either the Lincoln Memorial ornbsp; Dunbar High School, necessarily. nbsp; It leads to Golgotha and the death of self-serving, self-centered, selfish behavior of whatever sort. nbsp; It leads to the death of all our short-sighted parochialisms for God loves the world not just America, and that is why he sent his Son so that all of us, yes all of us, might have everlasting life, freedom from sin in Christ, and the happiness of the pursuit of God's calling on our lives to make this world, including this country, better, not bitter.nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; br //div a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/08/beck-beckons-at-the-lincoln-memorial.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/3O5nya8G0IuEg4vo3ZGbWYFndHE/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/3O5nya8G0IuEg4vo3ZGbWYFndHE/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/3O5nya8G0IuEg4vo3ZGbWYFndHE/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/3O5nya8G0IuEg4vo3ZGbWYFndHE/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Leighton Ford on a Christian Approach to Muslims

Sat, 08/28/2010 - 14:36

div style="margin-bottom: 10pt;" span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/Bble%20Lands%202010%20198.jpg"img alt="Bble Lands 2010 198.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/Bble%20Lands%202010%20198-thumb-500x888-17564.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="888" //a/spanbr /br /Leighton Ford is an old Charlotte friend of mine, and was formerly Billy Graham's right hand man in the Billy Graham Association.nbsp; I find what he says in this post both sensible, sane, and well worth reflection.nbsp; BW3br /p class="ecxMsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"bspan style="font-size: 14pt; color: black;"Jesus and the Mosque/span/bspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: black;"/span/p /div div style="margin-bottom: 10pt;" p class="ecxMsoNormal"span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black;"On a shelf at home I have a copy of iPilgrims of Christ on the/i iMuslim Road/i, the story of the Syrian-born writer Mazhar Mallouhi. As a young man who grew up in a Muslim family he had a profound spiritual hunger, read widely, learned of Jesus in the Bible, and became a follower of Christ while remaining loyal to his Muslim culture./spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: black;"/span/p /div div style="margin-bottom: 10pt;" p class="ecxMsoNormal"span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black;"His novels are read by millions in the Middle East. Through them he has sought to bridge misunderstandings between Muslims and Christians./spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: black;"/span/p /div div style="margin-bottom: 10pt;" p class="ecxMsoNormal"span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black;"In the book is a photo of him in the famous Al Azhar Mosque in Cairo, sitting with a group of Muslims as they read the Gospels together. It is his custom to say, "I am a follower of Christ. Here is what Jesus said. Tell me honestly, do you think I am living as Jesus said I should?"/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: black;"/span/p /div div style="margin-bottom: 10pt;" p class="ecxMsoNormal"span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black;"I thought of Mallouhi's question during the heated dispute over the location of a Muslim mosque and community center near Ground Zero in New York. Among the voices being raised - some harsh with anger, some deep with indignation about "rights"- I wonder if the missing voice is that of Jesus?/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: black;"/span/p /div div style="margin-bottom: 10pt;" p class="ecxMsoNormal"span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black;"If I were a Muslim I might want to claim rights, but also want my leaders to consider whether another location would work and help to heal some deep hurts. But I am not a Muslim. Those issues are for the Muslim community to decide./spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: black;"/span/p /div div style="margin-bottom: 10pt;" p class="ecxMsoNormal"span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black;"What I need to ask is: what does Jesus say to us who say we follow him? /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: black;"/span/p /div div style="margin-bottom: 10pt;" p class="ecxMsoNormal"span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black;"Suppose we, like Mallouhi, sat down with some Muslims in the new community center, and read with them some of the words of Jesus, words like "Do good to those who hate you." That could apply to radical terrorists who want to blow us up. So how can it not apply to Muslim neighbors who are living among us?/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: black;"/span/p /div div style="margin-bottom: 10pt;" p class="ecxMsoNormal"span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black;"Many years ago my late friend J. Christy Wilson was pastor of the first ever Christian church in Kabul, Afghanistan. Through the good offices of President Eisenhower permission was granted to build the church, attended by Christian expatriates./spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: black;"/span/p /div div style="margin-bottom: 10pt;" p class="ecxMsoNormal"span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black;"The time came when the Afghan authorities revoked permission and announced they would knock the church down. When the bulldozers arrived what did the Christ followers there do? They served tea to the workers who were destroying their church building!/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: black;"/span/p /div div style="margin-bottom: 10pt;" p class="ecxMsoNormal"span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black;"They were living out a central tenet of our Christian faith - that we are "saved by grace" -God's grace freely given in Jesus Christ - and they showed grace./spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: black;"/span/p /div div style="margin-bottom: 10pt;" p class="ecxMsoNormal"span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black;"How can we do that?nbsp; I hope the churches and the Christ followers in New York can figure it out. Perhaps delivering a cool drink to the workers who will build the center? After all Paul went so far as to write (and this was about enemies, not neighbors) "If they are thirsty, give them something to drink." /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: black;"/span/p /div div style="margin-bottom: 10pt;" p class="ecxMsoNormal"span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black;"Does this mean we naively accept real evil? Not at all. I understand the rage that 9/11 stirred. Force is often needed to protect the innocent. But ultimately I have to follow Jesus and his follower Paul in the baffling reality of Paul's admonition to "Overcome evil with good."/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: black;"/span/p /div div style="margin-bottom: 10pt;" p class="ecxMsoNormal"span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black;"What does the love of Christ compel me to do? Perhaps whether in New York or Charlotte to extend a little more grace - actually a whole lot more. Wouldn't that be the best witness we could make?/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: black;"/span/p /div ispan style="font-size: 14pt; color: black;"Leighton Ford/span/i a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/08/leighton-ford-on-a-christian-approach-to-muslims.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/L8FdwFeYOGvvfeSb3MweJ2fvviQ/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/L8FdwFeYOGvvfeSb3MweJ2fvviQ/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/L8FdwFeYOGvvfeSb3MweJ2fvviQ/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/L8FdwFeYOGvvfeSb3MweJ2fvviQ/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Honest to God

Fri, 08/27/2010 - 13:12

meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CBENWIT%7E1.ASB%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"!--[if gte mso 9]xml w:WordDocument w:ViewNormal/w:View w:Zoom0/w:Zoom w:PunctuationKerning/ w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/ w:SaveIfXMLInvalidfalse/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid w:IgnoreMixedContentfalse/w:IgnoreMixedContent w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderTextfalse/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText w:Compatibility w:BreakWrappedTables/ w:SnapToGridInCell/ w:WrapTextWithPunct/ w:UseAsianBreakRules/ w:DontGrowAutofit/ /w:Compatibility w:BrowserLevelMicrosoftInternetExplorer4/w:BrowserLevel /w:WordDocument /xml![endif]--!--[if gte mso 9]xml w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156" /w:LatentStyles /xml![endif]--style !-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} -- /style span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/Bble%20Lands%202010%20214.jpg"img alt="Bble Lands 2010 214.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/Bble%20Lands%202010%20214-thumb-500x281-17562.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="281" //a/span p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"There is no unmoved Mover/p p class="MsoNormal"Who set the stars a-spin/p p class="MsoNormal"And crawled back into heaven/p p class="MsoNormal"Never seen again./p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"There is no old Watchmaker/p p class="MsoNormal"Who wound all things up tight/p p class="MsoNormal"And then retreated quietly/p p class="MsoNormal"Removed from thought or sight./p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"There is no Ground of Being/p p class="MsoNormal"Unearthed by abstract thought/p p class="MsoNormal"No universal solvent,/p p class="MsoNormal"We conjured, made or bought./p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"There is no Passive Parent/p p class="MsoNormal"Who idly stands aside/p p class="MsoNormal"And watches all our mayhem/p p class="MsoNormal"And never smiled or cried./p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"There is no God of the gaps,/p p class="MsoNormal"Who only intervenes/p p class="MsoNormal"When nature is overwhelmed/p p class="MsoNormal"Or humans are too mean. /p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"Instead there's God the Passionate/p p class="MsoNormal"Who works all things for good,/p p class="MsoNormal"For those who ever love Him/p p class="MsoNormal"And trusted that he would. /p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"There's God the ever present/p p class="MsoNormal"The One who's ever there/p p class="MsoNormal"The One who's most pro-active/p p class="MsoNormal"The One who always cares. br //pp class="MsoNormal"br //pp class="MsoNormal"There's God the awesome artist/pp class="MsoNormal"Whose rainbows grace the skies/pp class="MsoNormal"And all creation mirrors/pp class="MsoNormal"The twinkle in his eyes. br //p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"There's God the Suffering Servant/p p class="MsoNormal"Who hung upon the Tree/p p class="MsoNormal"And when his people suffered, asked,/p p class="MsoNormal"'Why'd you persecute me?'/p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"There's God who is the mourner/p p class="MsoNormal"Sits shiva for the dead,/p p class="MsoNormal"There's God the intervener/p p class="MsoNormal"'Tween me and things I dread./p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"There's God who is the lover,/p p class="MsoNormal"And will not give us up,/p p class="MsoNormal"He will not give up on us,/p p class="MsoNormal"For us he drank that cup. /p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"There's God the recreator/p p class="MsoNormal"Recycling all our trash/p p class="MsoNormal"And making new creation,/p p class="MsoNormal"From piles of dust and ash. /p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"There's God the marriage broker/p p class="MsoNormal"His Son and earthly bride/p p class="MsoNormal"The church his long intended one/p p class="MsoNormal"Standing by his side. /p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"We never i style=""were/i left bereft/p p class="MsoNormal"To fend for just ourselves,/p p class="MsoNormal"God never was A.W.O.L./p p class="MsoNormal"Sitting idly on some shelf./p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"No absentee Landlord/p p class="MsoNormal"Not M.I.A. at all/p p class="MsoNormal"He wipes the tears from every eye/p p class="MsoNormal"And catches us when we fall. /p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"Some day we'll see him face to face/p p class="MsoNormal"We'll know as we are known,/p p class="MsoNormal"Someday we'll learn what we now trust,/p p class="MsoNormal"We never were alone. /p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"span style=""nbsp;/span/p p class="MsoNormal"Aug. 27, 2010/p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p divbr //div a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/08/honest-to-god.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/p-olrL7TWpGHzK0ox_L9arPsGEY/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/p-olrL7TWpGHzK0ox_L9arPsGEY/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/p-olrL7TWpGHzK0ox_L9arPsGEY/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/p-olrL7TWpGHzK0ox_L9arPsGEY/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Near Cat-tastrophe of the Day

Thu, 08/26/2010 - 21:30

span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/cato.jpg"img alt="cato.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/cato-thumb-500x343-17546.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="343" //a/span divbr //div a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/08/near-cat-tastrophe-of-the-day.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/9jfdrJbltPp0U-nyu_rEP--UKYQ/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/9jfdrJbltPp0U-nyu_rEP--UKYQ/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/9jfdrJbltPp0U-nyu_rEP--UKYQ/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/9jfdrJbltPp0U-nyu_rEP--UKYQ/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Jesus and Money--- the Convocation Address

Tue, 08/24/2010 - 23:15

span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/Jesusmoney.jpg"img alt="Jesusmoney.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2009/12/Jesusmoney-thumb-400x400-10353.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="400" height="400" //a/spanmeta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CBENWIT%7E1.ASB%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"/o:smarttagtypeo:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="PlaceName"/o:smarttagtypeo:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="PlaceType"/o:smarttagtype!--[if gte mso 9]xml w:WordDocument w:ViewNormal/w:View w:Zoom0/w:Zoom w:PunctuationKerning/ w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/ w:SaveIfXMLInvalidfalse/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid w:IgnoreMixedContentfalse/w:IgnoreMixedContent w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderTextfalse/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText w:Compatibility w:BreakWrappedTables/ w:SnapToGridInCell/ w:WrapTextWithPunct/ w:UseAsianBreakRules/ w:DontGrowAutofit/ /w:Compatibility w:BrowserLevelMicrosoftInternetExplorer4/w:BrowserLevel /w:WordDocument /xml![endif]--!--[if gte mso 9]xml w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156" /w:LatentStyles /xml![endif]--!--[if !mso]object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"/object style st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /style ![endif]--style !-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} /* List Definitions */ @list l0 {mso-list-id:2045322585; mso-list-type:hybrid; mso-list-template-ids:-26172974 -2047821486 67698713 67698715 67698703 67698713 67698715 67698703 67698713 67698715;} @list l0:level1 {mso-level-text:"%1\)"; mso-level-tab-stop:84.75pt; mso-level-number-position:left; margin-left:84.75pt; text-indent:-48.75pt;} ol {margin-bottom:0in;} ul {margin-bottom:0in;} -- /style!--[if gte mso 10] style /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} /style ![endif]-- p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"br //pp class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"My book Jesus and Money is being picked up as a textbook this Fall, including at Greenville College in Ill. where I will be giving the Convocation Address this week.nbsp; Here is the text of the address./pp class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;" br //pp class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"JESUS AND MONEY/p p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"span style=""nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; /spanMoney is like truth serum. Whoever touches it turns either into gold or lead, which is to say, money, and what people do with it reveals their character.span style=""nbsp; /spanThe hoarder, like the man who stored things up in barns in Jesus' parable, simply further indulges his propensity to hoard.span style=""nbsp; /spanThe miser like Scrooge continues to be miserly unless he has the extreme makeover or a character change.span style=""nbsp; /spanThe compassionate person is given further opportunities to express that character, and so on. /p p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"span style=""nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; /spanThere is a reason why there are more warnings about the dangers of money and riches in the NT than there are remarks about dying and going to heaven.span style=""nbsp; /span'Where a person's treasure is, therein lies that person's heart.'span style=""nbsp;nbsp; /spanWe must talk seriously about these things, but first we need to set the framework for our discussion.span style=""nbsp; /span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 150%;"Is there such a thing as a Biblical theology of property, a normative statement on 'materiality'?span style=""nbsp;nbsp; /spanI think the answer to this is yes.span style=""nbsp; /spanThe Psalmist enunciates it quite well reflecting on his creation theology---- 'the earth is the Lord's and the fullness there of'.span style=""nbsp;nbsp; /spanNot just ten percent, but everything belongs to God.span style=""nbsp; /spanIt is all God's property.span style=""nbsp; /spanIn fact, we are God's property.span style=""nbsp; /spanNow if this is true, then in the ultimate sense we are not really owners of anything.span style=""nbsp; /spanWe did not bring anything with us into this world and even if we are buried with our pink Cadillacs we can't really take it with us.span style=""nbsp; /spanJoke about man who took gold bullion to heaven with him. /p p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 150%;"What the Bible says about property is that God is the owner, and we are only stewards of God's property. Now this cuts against theories of both godless communism and godless capitalism as well.span style=""nbsp; /spanAnd if we are merely stewards of God's property, then we need to constantly be asking God---- what should I be doing with this or that piece of property you have loaned me?span style=""nbsp;nbsp; /spanIn other words, like any good steward, we need to check with the owner before making financial decisions, even seemingly trivial ones. And if all else fails, we should read the Owner's Manual---- I mean the Bible of course. span style=""nbsp;/spanAlas, however we live in a Jesus haunted culture that is Biblical illiterate, and that illiteracy has allowed us to give free reign to all kinds of false ideas about money, investing, retirement, the freedom to spend money of luxury items and the like.span style=""nbsp; /spanOne of the great problems in the Christian life is not merely that we live without proper theological and ethical reflection about what we do, we in fact give free reign to impulse buying, subjecting ourselves to the bombardment of thousands of advertisements a week.span style=""nbsp; /spanEven worse, we sometimes convince ourselves we have some sort of patriotic duty to shop until we drop cause 'it's good for the economy'.span style=""nbsp;nbsp; /spanChristian approaches to money and spending and saving and work hardly enter our thought processes, so controlled are we by our urges, longings, desires, wants.... even more than by our actual needs.span style=""nbsp; /spanJesus understood that the heart of the matter is a matter of the heart.span style=""nbsp; /spanThe heart is the heart of the problem. span style=""nbsp;nbsp;/spanLet's listen to what Jesus says. /p p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 150%;"First of all Jesus tells us "do not store up treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume, and thieves break in and steal, rather store up treasures in heaven". What is he talking about?span style=""nbsp; /spanspan style=""nbsp;/spanIs he envisioning some sort of heavenly bank account we can invest in, in order to have 'our best life now'?span style=""nbsp; /spanWell no.span style=""nbsp; /spanHe is talking about stifling the acquisitive instinct, and instead of saving for your own future, you should be investing in the lives of others and trusting God for the future. span style=""nbsp;/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 150%;"This word just in--- there is no theology of retirement in the Bible, no theology of pension or nest egg.span style=""nbsp; /spanThere is a theology of rest and blessing, but that is a different matter.span style=""nbsp; /spanThe real issue here is where one places one's ultimate trust (as manifested in what one does with one's money) and where one's sense of ultimate security lies--- in one's bank account or in one's Lord.span style=""nbsp;nbsp; /spanIt's a heart issue and a faith issue.span style=""nbsp;nbsp; /spanJesus warns that there can be no half and half solution--- you can't half way serve Mammon and half way serve God. span style=""nbsp;/spanThen you have two absolute masters, and that i style=""absolutely/i doesn't work.span style=""nbsp; /span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 150%;"Anytime you see a 'therefore' in Scripture you need to ask what is it there for, and we have precisely this sort of thing after Jesus' famous two masters aphorism.span style=""nbsp; /spanSince you cannot serve two masters, therefore what you ought to do is "don't worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body what you will wear."span style=""nbsp; /spanHe is saying we should not be fretting and sweating over the necessities of life, how much less should we be having an anxiety attack about what luxuries we don't have.span style=""nbsp; /spanAnyway, he tells us we can't add a moment to our lives by worrying, even about the necessities like where our next meal is coming from.span style=""nbsp; /span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 150%;"Worry is a condition of the heart--- a heart matter.span style=""nbsp; /spanAre you a worry wart?span style=""nbsp; /spanWhat this reflects is a lack of trust in God--- put bluntly.span style=""nbsp; /spanGod knows what we need to live, what we need to thrive, what we need to be good stewards and we should trust God will provide these necessities of life.span style=""nbsp; /spanIt is in that context that Jesus adds "Seek first the st1:place w:st="on"st1:placetype w:st="on"kingdom/st1:placetype of st1:placename w:st="on"God/st1:placename/st1:place and all these things will be added".span style=""nbsp; /spanWhat are i style=""these things/i?span style=""nbsp; /spanThe context is clear. They do not include gas guzzling SUVs, bling, expensive cellphones, expensive clothes etc.span style=""nbsp; /span'These things' in this text clearly refers to the necessities of life.span style=""nbsp; /spanSo we should not be praying the old Janis Joplin song in our heads---- 'Oh Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz.....' span style=""nbsp;nbsp;/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 150%;"Similarly, in Mt. 7 when Jesus says ask, seek, and knock and it will be given, he is not talking about God blessing you with wealth and riches and things that ruin your character and turn you into a narcissistic fool, he's talking about God taking care of your basic needs in life.span style=""nbsp; /spanThere is a false theology, very popular in some quarters in the conservative Protestant church.span style=""nbsp; /spanThe name it and claim theology, or the 'God wants you rich' theology.span style=""nbsp; /spanBesides the fact this is totally false and unbiblical, it fails to recognize that God knows perfectly well we are all fallen creatures with fallen desires, and you can pray until you are blue in the face, but God is not likely to give you things that will ruin your Christian character because he knows what is best for you, and is a good Father to us all.span style=""nbsp; /spanHe is not like the Father who gives his daughter a snake when she asks for a fish. God is also not a cosmic prize patrol Dude at your beck and call just because you ask nicely for this that or the other. You can't make God an offer he can't refuse' Period. /p p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 150%;"Is money inherently evil then?span style=""nbsp; /spanOf course not. It is part of God's good creation.span style=""nbsp; /spanThe problem lies in the human heart, hence Paul stresses 'the i style=""love/i of money is a root of all sorts of evil'.span style=""nbsp; /spanHe's right about that--- the lusts of the heart plague us all in one form or another. span style=""nbsp;/spanspan style=""nbsp;/spanIf its not the love of money it's the love of clothes, if its not the love of clothes it's the love of Ipods and downloads, if its not the love of Ipods it's the love of cars, if its not the love of cars, it's the lusting after girls, girls, girls, or boys, boys boys.span style=""nbsp; /spanThere is a difference between lusts of the heart and real love, but our culture hardly can tell the differences any more. /p p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 150%;"It is a fact that Jesus told us to pay our taxes to the Emperor, or to the temple.span style=""nbsp; /spanIt is also a fact that he encouraged us to generosity and self-sacrificial behavior.span style=""nbsp; /spanThe story of the widow and her two 'mites' or lepta urges us to do more than tithing, it urges us to self-sacrificial behavior.span style=""nbsp; /spanThere is not a mandate in the NT for Christians to tithe, but there certainly is a mandate to give self-sacrificially.span style=""nbsp; /spanspan style=""nbsp;nbsp;/spanBy now I think you catch my drift.span style=""nbsp; /spanIf you are well grounded in God's Word, you will realize that the siren song of our culture about money and material possessions is not the trumpet call of God.span style=""nbsp; /spanWe have been led down the path to massive debt, ridiculous indulgence of desires, not needs mind you, but wants and desires. We are a debtor nation, and Christians are often the worst examples of this problem.span style=""nbsp; /spanFortunately, there is a way back from the brink of disaster, a way to life wisely and without anxiety about necessities.span style=""nbsp;nbsp; /spanHere are some of the basic principles of life:/p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 84.75pt; text-indent: -48.75pt; line-height: 150%;"!--[if !supportLists]--span style=""1)span style="font: 7pt quot;Times New Romanquot;;"nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; /span/span!--[endif]--recognize each day that you are not an owner of anything, only a steward of God's property;/p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 84.75pt; text-indent: -48.75pt; line-height: 150%;"!--[if !supportLists]--span style=""2)span style="font: 7pt quot;Times New Romanquot;;"nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; /span/span!--[endif]--this leads to the necessity of consultation. You must pray and seek Biblical guidance before buying things, especially luxury items/p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 84.75pt; text-indent: -48.75pt; line-height: 150%;"!--[if !supportLists]--span style=""3)span style="font: 7pt quot;Times New Romanquot;;"nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; /span/span!--[endif]--Make up a list of the necessities and luxuries in your life.span style=""nbsp; /spanGod has promised to help you with the former, but he may well want to alleviate you of the latter, especially if it gets in the way of his soul work in you./p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 84.75pt; text-indent: -48.75pt; line-height: 150%;"!--[if !supportLists]--span style=""4)span style="font: 7pt quot;Times New Romanquot;;"nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; /span/span!--[endif]--Ask the hard questions and learn how to critically discern the differences between a necessity in your life and a luxury. For some of you, having a car is a necessity of life, for work purposes etc.span style=""nbsp; /spanFor some of you, it is not.span style=""nbsp; /spanNo one set of rules fits us all in most matters of material possessions.span style=""nbsp; /spanThe gifted concert trumpet player needs a trumpet.span style=""nbsp; /spanI do not. /p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 84.75pt; text-indent: -48.75pt; line-height: 150%;"!--[if !supportLists]--span style=""5)span style="font: 7pt quot;Times New Romanquot;;"nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; /span/span!--[endif]--Stay out of debt to the best of your ability. span style=""nbsp;/spanPay for things as you go, and don't borrow ridiculous amounts of money at crushing interest rates. By the way most credit cards have crushing interest rates if you don't pay them off each month.span style=""nbsp; /spanTear up such cards, and live with just a debit card. /p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 84.75pt; text-indent: -48.75pt; line-height: 150%;"!--[if !supportLists]--span style=""6)span style="font: 7pt quot;Times New Romanquot;;"nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; /span/span!--[endif]--Don't waste any of the currencies of life--- your money, your time, your talents etc. /p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 84.75pt; text-indent: -48.75pt; line-height: 150%;"!--[if !supportLists]--span style=""7)span style="font: 7pt quot;Times New Romanquot;;"nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; /span/span!--[endif]--Give and give back more than you take and acquire. Set an example of self-sacrificial behavior like that of Jesus/p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 84.75pt; text-indent: -48.75pt; line-height: 150%;"!--[if !supportLists]--span style=""8)span style="font: 7pt quot;Times New Romanquot;;"nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; /span/span!--[endif]--Trust God, and move on faith in the directions he wants you to go. God reveals enough about the future to give you hope, but not so much that you don't have to live by faith every day of your life.span style=""nbsp; /spanPut your trust in God, not your possessions, or else they will possess you. /p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 84.75pt; text-indent: -48.75pt; line-height: 150%;"!--[if !supportLists]--span style=""9)span style="font: 7pt quot;Times New Romanquot;;"nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; /span/span!--[endif]--Some things in life really are priceless--- your salvation, your relationship with the Lord, life experiences that form you in the image of Christ and his great love for everyone. span style=""nbsp;/spanMake the main thing the main thing and count your blessings.span style=""nbsp; /spanMoney can't buy you love or happiness or a good relationship with parents or children or friends or with God. /p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 84.75pt; text-indent: -48.75pt; line-height: 150%;"!--[if !supportLists]--span style=""10)span style="font: 7pt quot;Times New Romanquot;;"nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; /span/span!--[endif]--Learn in detail what the Bible says about the earth and all its material things.span style=""nbsp; /spanYou have been blessed to be a blessing to others--- this means no hoarding, no miserly behavior.span style=""nbsp; /spanThe sign of the Christ is the open hand, giving to others, not the clinched fist, clinging to what loose change one has.span style=""nbsp;nbsp; /spanRead the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. It is a sober reminder that how you deal with money and the poor and other related matters can affect your eternal destiny.span style=""nbsp;nbsp; /spanNo wonder Jesus said---- 'Blessed are the poor, for yours is the st1:place w:st="on"st1:placetype w:st="on"Kingdom/st1:placetype of st1:placename w:st="on"God/st1:placename/st1:place'.span style=""nbsp;nbsp; /spanI suspect many of you can claim that beatitude as your own, because many students are poor today.span style=""nbsp;nbsp; /spanThe test will come when you begin to have money.span style=""nbsp; /spanThat will reveal what your real character is. span style=""nbsp;nbsp;/spanAre you ready for that test/span style=""nbsp; /spanI hope you are, and I pray that you pass it. /p p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 150%;"span style=""nbsp;/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 150%;"o:pnbsp;/o:p/p p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 150%;"span style=""nbsp;/span/p a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/08/jesus-and-money----the-convocation-address.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/QAyytSEecHmVacWnYiHQQob3FgY/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/QAyytSEecHmVacWnYiHQQob3FgY/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/QAyytSEecHmVacWnYiHQQob3FgY/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/QAyytSEecHmVacWnYiHQQob3FgY/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Cross Talk in Poland

Mon, 08/23/2010 - 18:10

span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/palace.cross.afpgi.jpg"img alt="palace.cross.afpgi.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/palace.cross.afpgi-thumb-500x281-17486.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="281" //a/span br /br /For some weeks now, there have been a lot of protests and prayers being offered in the capital of Poland, and the center of attention and controversy is a large wooden cross and a former President who is both revered and reviled.nbsp; Here is the link to the story. See what you think. BW3br /nbsp;br /http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/08/23/frum.poland.cross/index.html?hpt=T2br / a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/08/cross-talk-in-poland.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/jcI_MTgSdT2m5NguIoc6lbDt8Bg/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/jcI_MTgSdT2m5NguIoc6lbDt8Bg/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/jcI_MTgSdT2m5NguIoc6lbDt8Bg/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/jcI_MTgSdT2m5NguIoc6lbDt8Bg/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

The Road Less Travelled

Sat, 08/21/2010 - 16:25

span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/road5.jpg"img alt="road5.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/road5-thumb-500x380-17438.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="380" //a/span divbr /"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I took the one less traveled by....."br /span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/road13.jpg"img alt="road13.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/road13-thumb-500x350-17440.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="350" //a/spanbr //divdivbr /"Walking down a country road"br /br /span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/road2.jpg"img alt="road2.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/road2-thumb-500x485-17442.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="485" //a/spanbr //divdivbr /span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/road12.jpg"img alt="road12.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/road12-thumb-500x361-17444.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="361" //a/spanbr //divdivbr /"The highway to Hell"br /span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/road6.jpg"img alt="road6.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/road6-thumb-500x345-17446.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="345" //a/spanbr //divdivbr /The road to nowhere. br /br /span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/road4.jpg"img alt="road4.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/road4-thumb-500x339-17448.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="339" //a/spanbr //divdivbr /span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/road8.jpg"img alt="road8.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/road8-thumb-500x196-17450.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="196" //a/spanbr //divdivbr /Shoreline drive.br /span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/road10.jpg"img alt="road10.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/road10-thumb-500x358-17452.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="358" //a/spanbr //divdivbr /The roundabout way to get there. br /br /span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/road11.jpg"img alt="road11.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/road11-thumb-500x361-17454.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="361" //a/spanbr //divdivbr /Tunnel vision.br /span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/road3.jpg"img alt="road3.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/road3-thumb-500x383-17456.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="383" //a/spanbr //divdivbr /"The long and winding road, that leads to your door."br //div a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/08/the-road-less-travelled.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/c-54r5SmeqjC_8fOdL8O3j9kw-Y/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/c-54r5SmeqjC_8fOdL8O3j9kw-Y/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/c-54r5SmeqjC_8fOdL8O3j9kw-Y/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/c-54r5SmeqjC_8fOdL8O3j9kw-Y/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

The Faith of Barack Obama

Fri, 08/20/2010 - 14:47

span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/obam.jpg"img alt="obam.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2009/12/obam-thumb-450x313-10011.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="450" height="313" //a/spanbr /br /Despite repeated denials,nbsp; there are still many conservative persons, including many conservative Christians who think the President of the United States is a Muslim.nbsp; One can only imagine that his recent remarks about the proposed mosque in N.Y. near ground zero will only further fuel such opinions.nbsp; There has been a recent Pew Research poll done on opinions about Obama's faith----- here is the link to an article about it. See what you think.br /br /bhttp://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/19/obamas-religion-still-at-issue-for-many-americans-a-fifth-say/?ncid=AOLDSN00280000000031/bbr /br /As for my opinion, I think that Barack Obama is most certainly a self-professed African American Christian.nbsp; I am in no position to judge what is in the man's heart so I must take what he says, and what various of his friends like Rick Warren, say as the truth unless there is compelling evidence to the contrary, which there definitely is not. br /br /What bothers me about the persistence of this sort of discussion is that it involves fear-mongering and all sorts of emotive rhetoric without any sound basis in facts.nbsp; If a person does not like the President's politics, that is one thing.nbsp; The attempt to link his political views to his religious views is a two edged sword.nbsp; There are plenty, indeed I would say millions of devout Christians in American who mostly share Obama's political views.nbsp; Does this make them somehow, not Christian? nbsp; Surely not. nbsp; So more circumspection is called for in making pejorative statements about Obama's Christian faith, based on pure suspicions and a dislike for his politics. Let the vituperative ones take the log out of their own eyes first, before trying to extract the perceived speck in someone else's eye.nbsp; br / divbr //div a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/08/the-faith-of-barack-obama.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/o1AxsfMxxrKXk7qqW99NtfS0pMA/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/o1AxsfMxxrKXk7qqW99NtfS0pMA/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/o1AxsfMxxrKXk7qqW99NtfS0pMA/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/o1AxsfMxxrKXk7qqW99NtfS0pMA/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

More Novel Ideas

Thu, 08/19/2010 - 09:36

span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/alexa.jpg"img alt="alexa.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/alexa-thumb-400x594-17357.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="400" height="594" //a/span divbr /The summer fun reading period is almost over, but I wanted to mention two excellent novels that give you a better feel for the first century world in which the NT was written.nbsp; Both novels are set in the 70s A.D., both involve some good historical research (though not without some probable flaws--- i.e. Lindsey Davis seems to think that John Mark actually did end up in Egypt and was martyred in Alexandria. Whether he did or not, his Gospel was probably written in Rome in the 60s).nbsp; br /br /The first of these novels is by Robert Harris, and was recommended to me by two of my Aussie friendsnbsp; John and Gillian Painter of Canberra.nbsp; It is entitled bPompeii /band it focuses on the singular story line of the 'aquarius'nbsp; that is, the Emperor's man in charge of water (all Italian water belonged to the Emperor), and also in charge of aqueducts, reservoirs and the like.nbsp; Marcus Attilius Primus is sent to Pompeii to deal with a break in the water systems feeding Herculaneum, Pompeii and other cities on the bay of Neapolis (Naples) only the week before the famous eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79.nbsp; It's a compelling read, and Robert Harris has several other novels about that period in Roman history as well which can be commended.nbsp; Harris follows a single plot line relentlessly in this novel, and does an excellent job of building up the tension and the sense of impending doom in the story line while enlightening us as to just how crucial water was and is, and how the aqueduct system of the Romans changed the world, and was one of most brilliant inventions in all of antiquity. br /br /The second novel is yet another entry in Lindsey Davis' long running series of novels featuring her sleuthnbsp; Marcu Didius Falco and his intrepid patrician wife, Helena Justina.nbsp; This one is entitled bAlexandria/b, for the very good reason that it is set in that famous ancient city,nbsp; and is full of the same usual humour and high jinx we have come to expect of her novels.nbsp; Falco gets himself and his family in and out of various sorts of trouble all the while solving mysteries--- in this case the mystery of the murder of Theon, the librarian at the most famous library in the ancient world. It was a library which boasted holdings of about a half a million scrolls and claimed to have every significant work ever written in antiquity.nbsp;nbsp; Now if we could only find that motherlode as a result of the recent archaeological work in Alexandria!nbsp; Then we would really have something to talk about.nbsp; Unlike Harris' novel,nbsp; bAlexandria/bnbsp; not merely informs, it entertains with its humour, and this sets it apart from other novel series on ancient Rome such as those by Colleen McCullough or Stephen Saylor. nbsp; br /br /There is much that can be learned from good historical fiction about the NT era without breaking a cerebral artery or even breaking a sweat, and these two novels,nbsp; both of which clock in at just over 300 pages, are easy and compelling reads.nbsp; As I have been writing my series of archaeological thrillersnbsp; (see the recent post on my bPapias and the Mysterious Menorah) /bthese are the sort of writers I study to gain more skill in plotting, characterization, description and the like.nbsp; nbsp; br //div a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/08/more-novel-ideas.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/BdN20C3wfbJdgoI033wU81J221g/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/BdN20C3wfbJdgoI033wU81J221g/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/BdN20C3wfbJdgoI033wU81J221g/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/BdN20C3wfbJdgoI033wU81J221g/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Everything you Want--- Is not Everything you Need

Wed, 08/18/2010 - 18:40

p object width="480" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rZoD8JEFjAE?fs=1amp;hl=en_US"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rZoD8JEFjAE?fs=1amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"/embed/object/p pFor further developments of this theme see my Jesus and Money. Music courtesy of a band from my wife's neighborhood in Massachusetts---- Vertical Horizon /p a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/08/everything-you-want----is-not-everything-you-need.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/tJ6_dLOcX_8GeyxOjua7pYdSh4s/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/tJ6_dLOcX_8GeyxOjua7pYdSh4s/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/tJ6_dLOcX_8GeyxOjua7pYdSh4s/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/tJ6_dLOcX_8GeyxOjua7pYdSh4s/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

The Indelible Image--- an Interview with Nijay Gupta

Tue, 08/17/2010 - 19:27

h2 id="post-1734"a href="http://nijaygupta.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/interview-with-ben-witherington-iii-on-the-indelible-image/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Interview with Ben Witherington III on THE INDELIBLEnbsp;IMAGE"Interview with br //a/h2h2 id="post-1734"a href="http://nijaygupta.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/interview-with-ben-witherington-iii-on-the-indelible-image/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Interview with Ben Witherington III on THE INDELIBLEnbsp;IMAGE"Ben Witherington III on THE INDELIBLEnbsp;IMAGE/a http://nijaygupta.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/interview-with-ben-witherington-iii-on-the-indelible-image/br //h2 div class="snap_preview"pimg class="alignleft" title="BW3" src="http://www.benwitherington.com/images/Ben.jpg" alt="" width="164" height="172" / Ben Witherington III, Amos Professor of NT for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary (KY), is a highly competent interpreter of Scripture and a prolific author. We have some interesting similarities. We both studied at secular undergrads (Ben at UNC and me at Miami Univ), both did our MDIVs at Gordon-Conwell, and both did our PhD work at Univ of Durham. We both taught at Ashland Theological Seminary and I just joined the adjunct faculty (to teach for the virtual campus) at Asbury. Another cross-current - I went to high school with his daughter!/p pWell, in any case, I was happy to receive a copy last year of his fantastic and cogent booknbsp;entitled ema href="http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=3860" target="_blank"Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical World of the New Testament/a/ema href="http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=3860" target="_blank" /a(vol1 : emThe Individual Witnesses/em, Vol 2: emThe Collective Witnesses/em). Ben was kind enough to do an interview here with me and I suggest you recommend that your library order this weighty series. It is an excellent resource and would make a nice textbook as well./p pNKG: There has been a whole host of NT Theology projects in recent years (Thielman, Marshall, Matera,nbsp;Dunn,/p pa href="http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=3860" target="_blank"img class="alignright" title="ii" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/519rO3MjX%2BL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" alt="" width="144" height="144" //aSchreiner, Schnelle) - your project seeks to complement the 'theology' aspect by attending to the 'ethical' aspects as well. nbsp;Why has this beennbsp;neglected by scholars?/p blockquotepYou are of course right that there have been a plethora of NT theology tomes that have come out in the last decade or so. Not so many systematic surveys on NT ethics however.nbsp;nbsp; Richard Hay's span style="text-decoration: underline;"The Moral Vision of the NT, /span and Wayne Meek's work are both quite dated by now.nbsp;nbsp; To some degree, the answer why the latter has been largely neglected while the former has been the subject of constant scrutiny has to do with the way one views salvation.nbsp; If salvation is purely a theological matter, we are saved by grace through faith plus nothing, then ethics can be no more than the grateful response of a person to what God has and is doing.nbsp; The problem with this view of salvation is considerable.nbsp; Salvation has three tenses in the NT-- I have been saved (conversion, the new birth) I am being saved, and I shall be saved to the uttermost (involving finally the resurrection and full conformity to the image of Christ).nbsp; According to the NT, while the new birth is by grace through faith,nbsp; the working out of salvation, in the form of sanctification is a joint project-- God working within us, and us working it out with fear and trembling.nbsp; In other words, we participate in our own progressive sanctification not merely by what we believe, but by what we do, and what we don't do.nbsp; Of course this would not be possible if there were not the grace of God to draw on each and every day, but in fact our sanctification is affected by our behavior, either positively or negatively.nbsp;nbsp; And then of course there are the numerous warnings in various places in the NT about the possibility of a true believer committing apostasy. As John Wesley once said about that famous text in the Pastoral speaking about converts who had made shipwreck of their faith,nbsp; 'you can't make shipwreck of something you don't have'.nbsp; In short, the neglect of ethics, or the relegating of it to the spot of an after thought or a mere response of gratitude to God which has no effect on one's everlasting life is ultimately a result of a theology that does not adequately understand the divine human encounter, even when it comes to salvation.nbsp; God had chosen to save us by involving us actively in the process.nbsp; And our free and willing participation is not predetermined by God. nbsp;Doubtless God could have done it otherwise, but he has chosen not to do so, and part of the reason is because he created us in his image--with a capacity for personal relationship with God,nbsp; a capacity to freely respond in love to God's love for us. Love, can neither be coerced, nor manipulated nor predetermined, and it is no accident that love is at the heart of the ethic of the NT-- love for God, and all others as well.nbsp; Like God who is love, we are called to be lovers of all his creation. Freely we have received, and freely we should give./p/blockquote pNKG: In many ways, this is the culmination of your life's work on the NT, drawing together many of your interests in rhetoric, ethics, the church, narrative, Jesus studies, Pauline studies, etc... nbsp;Certainly this is the perfect way for a newbie to access your work, but for the rest of us who have read all thingsnbsp;Witherington, are there ideas and concepts that appear innbsp;emIndelible Image/em that are not found in your other works?/p blockquotepYes indeed there is a good deal in the Indelible Image, especially the second volume that one will not find in my earlier work. The second volume is the synthetic project, the ex post facto project-- what would a theology and ethic of the whole NT look like.nbsp; I should say from the outset, that I have only made the first steps in this direction in this volume.nbsp; I've laid the ground work and the methodology out, and done the initial soundings but it is for someone else to pick up the ball and run with it now.nbsp; Maybe you Nijay!!nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; There are two focal images for conceiving of the unity of NT theology and ethics which I have come up with--- one is an image from the arts, the other from the sciences.nbsp; In the former I conceive of the NT as like Handel's landmark worknbsp; 'Messiah', a great oratorio with numerous musical parts.nbsp; The focus of the oratorio, indeed its essential subject matter is of course Christ, even though it involves a considerable about of quoting the OT (especially Isaiah, the so-called Fifth Gospel). Now in an oratorio like this one there are major soloists, and the way I conceive of the NT I would say the voice of Jesus is the major solo voice, and everyone else in the NT is trying to blend in with, harmonize with, or echo that voice. There are other major soloists of course-- the Gospel writers,nbsp; Paul,nbsp; Peter, James, the author of Hebrews, John of Patmos, but their work serves the larger purpose of glorifying Christ and harmonizing with him. nbsp;If you know music, you know that the differing parts of an oratorio can sometimes involve dissonance as well as doubling and harmony.nbsp; This is how I would conceive of the differences in as well as the Christological unity of the NT.nbsp;nbsp; The second focal image is that of a Venn diagram (or as my students jokingly call it-- the Ben diagram).nbsp;nbsp; In this image you have a whole series of overlapping circles at the center of all of which is Christ.nbsp; The circles are arranged according to whether the witnesses are more focused on telling the story to Jewish Christians in a largely Jewish way, or telling the story to Gentile Christians in various other ways.nbsp; Then of course there is the concept of 'the indelible image'nbsp; which I see as the conjunction point that brings the theology and ethics of the NT together.nbsp; As God is holy, so must we be, as God is love, so must we be, as God is righteous so must we be. We are to reflect the character of God to the world, not merely proclaim that character verbally. Because we are created in God's image and renewed in that image in Christ, we have been created for good works, and indeed for being an indirect reflection of the glory of Christ on earth.nbsp; The call to imitate Christ is at the heart of the NT ethic, and the writers of the NT believe that by the grace of God, the image bearer can bear an uncanny resemblance to the one who created him in that image./p/blockquote pNKG: Who has been the greatest intellectual influence on you in terms of the integration of theology and ethics in the NT? nbsp;What other scholars would you consider kindred spirits in this kind of approach and orientation?/p blockquotepIt is really impossible to pick out one person who has influenced me down this road I have taken, if you mean NT scholars.nbsp; Certainly I owe a great debt to folk like Howard Marshall and Gordon Fee and others of my teachers, but to be honest it is the classic Wesleyan theologians who took seriously the interface of theology and ethics all along which sparked this sort of reflection-- I mean people like John Wesley, Francis Asbury, Joseph Fletcher, Richard Watson, Adam Clarke, and more recently folk like Tom Langford and Albert Outler.nbsp; None of these folk were exegetes or NT scholars in the modern sense of term, so it has been left to me to pursue these sorts of matters as an exegete and historian and I have done so./p/blockquote pNKG: When you conceived of this project, had you always centered it on the indelible image [of God]? nbsp;What inspired this thematic choice?/p blockquotepIt was during the course of the descriptive task of writing the first volume, and simply reviewing and displaying the various and sundry theologies and ethics of the NT writers and Jesus himself that I came to the conclusion that the imago dei would be a good focal point, binding theology and ethics together.nbsp; It is an interesting fact that there was no NT in the NT era.nbsp; It is an after the fact compilation and thus the attempt to do a theology and ethic of the whole NT must be seen as an ex post facto project as well, in this case by me.nbsp; It is one thing to simply describe the NT evidence, quite another to try and see what unites it.nbsp; Of course the underlying assumption is that there is a unity of theology and ethics in the NT because God inspired these writers to tell the truth about Jesus and related matters./p/blockquote pNKG: You explain that too often the theology (and ethic) of the NT is focused solely on Pauline and Johannine portions, and that you sought out to examine the entire witness of the NT. nbsp;In what other parts of the NT did you end up finding fecund ideas and paradigms for theology and ethics? nbsp;Were you ever surprised to find deeper reflection in a book you would not have guessed to contain such thinking?/p blockquotepMy friend Richard Bauckham has long been plowing the furrow of the theme that the Jewish Christian voice of various NT writers (Jude and James for instance) has been muffled, ignored, or even criticized.nbsp; He's right of course and I have sought to remedy this problem by giving due attention to every single NT book in all their variety.nbsp; As it happens it is precisely the so-called General Epistles that most play the ethics card in ways that demonstrate my thesis about the interface of NT theology and ethics.nbsp; James was absolutely right that faith without works is dead, and so is belief without behavior.nbsp; As John Wesley once famously said 'You can be as orthodox as the Devil, and still not be saved, because the truth has not transformed your character and behavior'.nbsp;nbsp; As Wesley, the Devil knows the truth about Jesus, he can recite the theological canon verbatim correctly,nbsp; but it does him no good.nbsp; Why not?nbsp; It's one thing to know the truth, another thing for the truth to set you free, to transform you through vital experience. nbsp;Orthodoxy without character reformation availeth not. It is dead orthodoxy.nbsp; This is not to denigrate right belief.nbsp; It's simply to say that orthodoxy and orthopraxy go together hand and glove, and they affect each other. You become what you admire and imitate, so to speak./p/blockquote pNKG: Can you share with us what writing projects you are currently working on and that we can get excited about?/p blockquotepI am enjoying doing a variety of small projects now for Eerdmans, several Kingdom books.nbsp; The most recent one to come out was on a Kingdom or eschatological view of worshipnbsp; We Have Seen his Glory. Next in line is a book on work, and more specifically the interface of work, rest, play, and worship tentatively called Labor Pains.nbsp; And I am especially enjoying working with my wife on a series of archaeological thrillers for Pickwick Press. I have seven envisioned in all.nbsp; Three are out--- The Lazarus Effect, Roman Numerals, and Papias and the Mysterious Menorah just came out.nbsp; One is in the pipeline-- Corinthian Leather.nbsp; It will be followed by Roma Aeterna (The Eternal City) and two more.nbsp; I was an English lit major at Carolina and it is fun to use all that learning now writing novels.nbsp; I discovered that lay people are far more likely to read novels than heavy theological tomes, and so I am trying to squeeze some good history, theology etc. into them sideways while they are busily reading a thriller.nbsp; I felt like I could do a much better job at this than was done with the Left Behind series (which is aptly titled since it should be left behind) and for that matter a better job than the hysterical rather than historical fiction of Dan Brown.nbsp; Its nice that some very positive reviews have started coming in for these novels--- one from Anne Rice in fact./p/blockquote div style="margin-top: 1em;" class="possibly-related"hrpstrongPossibly related posts: (automatically generated)/strong/pullia rel="related nofollow" href="http://christianityandthehumancondition.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/ben-witherington-on-women-in-ministry/"Ben Witherington on women in ministry/a/li/ul/div/div a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/08/the-indelible-image----an-interview-with-nijay-gupta.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/9dKs_6f7E-nBbYYWsveGhbwLvAw/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/9dKs_6f7E-nBbYYWsveGhbwLvAw/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/9dKs_6f7E-nBbYYWsveGhbwLvAw/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/9dKs_6f7E-nBbYYWsveGhbwLvAw/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

The Changing Face of Seminary Education

Mon, 08/16/2010 - 18:08

span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/easter%20008.jpg"img alt="easter 008.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/08/easter%20008-thumb-500x888-17305.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="888" //a/spanpbr //ppCary Hughes sent me a link to an article on Don Carson's blog about seminary education and what needs to change about it. Here is the link to the articlenbsp;/ppbr /http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2010/08/13/tgc-asks-what-one-thing-you-would-change-about-seminary-education//ppWhat intrigues me about this article is two fold. First of all, the people being asked are connected to Reformed Seminaries, it isn't a representative sampling of seminaries to start with, and what is being said, by and large is things that Wesleyan seminaries have long been doing--- integration of the practical with the more cerebral stuff, and commitment to Social Gospel type experiences for the seminarian. br //ppThe cry for integration is understandable, especially if the integration has been left in the past entirely to the bewildered student. But integration can also go wrong as well.nbsp; I have seen institutions where the drive for integration in fact led to a massive dumbing down of the required seminary curriculum, all in the service of trying to be more 'useful' to the church.nbsp;nbsp; But herein lies a problem--- what the church often wants, or even thinks it needs,nbsp; is not in fact what it needs, and if the seminary curriculum is dictated to on the basis of the latest list of desideratum and desires of churches then seminaries are in deep trouble--- trying to follow the latest trends or wants. It is like trying to catch the wind.nbsp; br //ppThis is not to say that the seminary should not have its ear to the ground and constantly being assessing how we can do a better job of training people for ministry in our various ever-changing cultural situations, but that is more a matter of hermeneutics than content when it comes to what should be required of students.nbsp; The relentless push to get to the finish line of application and implications needs to be resisted in the sense that those things should come into play only after the basic tasks of education in the classical curriculum are addressed.nbsp; One can't preach cutting edge Biblical sermons if one doesn't really know the Bible, to give but one example. You can't do practical ministry well and wisely without understanding what the Bible actually says about the practice of ministry. nbsp; br //ppThe problem with setting sail, following a prevailing wind, is that you may find yourself sailing entirely in the wrong direction and ending up at the wrong destination.nbsp; The Bible frankly doesn't need to be 'made' relevant. It is inherently relevant to the practice of ministry in any age. It is more a matter of showing that relevance and applying it rightly so that it is a word on target.nbsp;nbsp; Somewhere between a seminary becoming a glorious anachronism and becoming captive to the latest cultural trends is the right place for the seminary to be, with the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other--- relating the one to the other, as Billy Graham long ago said. br //ppnbsp; br //ppbr / /pdivbr //div a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/08/the-changing-face-of-seminary-education.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/LvIQ9oC3CHj139VZeH-a5JpIxQI/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/LvIQ9oC3CHj139VZeH-a5JpIxQI/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/LvIQ9oC3CHj139VZeH-a5JpIxQI/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/LvIQ9oC3CHj139VZeH-a5JpIxQI/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Theological Books Down Under

Sun, 08/15/2010 - 13:01

span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/07/papias-thumb-400x400-16418.jpg"img alt="Thumbnail image for papias.jpg" src="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/assets_c/2010/07/papias-thumb-400x400-16418-thumb-500x500-16419.jpg" class="mt-image-none" style="" width="500" height="500" //a/spanbr /br /One of the real problems for theological education in far flung places like Australia and New Zealand is the cost of theological books. Having spent a good deal of this and last summer Down Under in both countries, it is clear to me this is a serious issue.nbsp; Ordering books on Amazon U.S. from there can be prohibitively expensive counting shipping etc.and its no better using ordinarynbsp; in country book store chains who have to special order most theological books....you don't even get them in a very timely fashion. nbsp; br /br /Yes, there is the mega-store in Sydney otherwise known as Koorong,nbsp; (or as I like to put it 'too right mate----- you can't always go Koorong'). nbsp; But I have a mo' better suggestion.nbsp; br /br /Order your books from Hugh McGinlay at Mosaic Resources. The website is www.mosaicresources.com.au. Hugh is a fine Christian gentleman and theologically trained, and cares about the ministry of serious theological books.nbsp; As it happens he is now offering a 15% discount on a bunch of my latest titles, but he has good discounts on other theological books and commentaries as well. If you have a question for him directly you can reach him at hugh@rainbowbooks.com.au. br /br /So calling all Aussies and Kiwis and my Methodist friends from Tonga and Fiji.nbsp; Check out Mosaic Resources.nbsp; You will be glad you did, and in the process, you will be helping support cheaper theological books Down Under. nbsp; nbsp; divbr //div a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/08/theological-books-down-under.html"Read this post raquo;/a pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/UyqFlNFVqP36xnx16oPN55R9zDo/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/UyqFlNFVqP36xnx16oPN55R9zDo/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/UyqFlNFVqP36xnx16oPN55R9zDo/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/UyqFlNFVqP36xnx16oPN55R9zDo/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Martin and Hazel Frost Our Life in Argentina

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